


Benefit

by ibroketuesday



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-18 23:59:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3588789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ibroketuesday/pseuds/ibroketuesday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saving Bucky was the easy part. The hard part is the garden parties they have to attend afterward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Benefit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tigrrmilk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigrrmilk/gifts).



The night of the benefit was warm and clear, and Bucky accidentally stabbed Steve with the needle of one of his pins.

“Owww,” Steve complained, wrestling with Bucky for domain over the sore spot: Steve trying to get his thumb in to rub at his wound; Bucky, cackling, advancing at him with the pin for another attempt as his jacket.

“Oh, shut up, you baby. That'll heal in two seconds.” Bucky lunged at him and slid the pin home. “Ha!” This time, it clasped neatly, without any of Steve's skin in it. He stepped back, admiring his handiwork. “You look great.” 

“Really?” Steve shrugged his shoulders a couple times, trying to get used to the fit of the uniform. The jacket, weighted with pins and medals, jangled. It was his olive green military dress, an exact, tailored replica, down to the honors, of his uniform from the war. It had felt comfortable back then, but something about this version didn't hang right. Maybe it was the fact that he only wore it now as another way of dressing up as Captain America. He'd never felt natural in his USO costume either.

“Yeah, real handsome. All the dolls will be swooning.” Bucky winked, and it was easy as anything to reply, “There's only one doll whose swoon I want, sweetheart,” and dip him into a kiss. They came up laughing.

“I know, your honor is impeccable.” Bucky adjusted the medals on Steve's chest. His metal hand clinked against metal. “It's part of the Steve Rogers package deal.” He stepped back to comb his hands through his hair. “I feel like an idiot, though.”

They were in the bedroom of their apartment in Avengers Tower, a softly-lit, wide space whose most prominent feature was the view over New York. The exterior wall of their bedroom was less a wall of windows and more a wall that _was_ a window — of very high-quality shaded bulletproof glass. It gave them a panoramic view of the city, buildings black silhouettes against the deepening purple of the evening sky, with golden lights flickering on in their windows, like floating stars. Framed against the night city, Bucky looked dramatic and handsome in his deep gray custom suit and navy tie. His hair fell against his face in soft waves, but it couldn't hide the nervous set of his jaw. Not from Steve.

“You look amazing,” he said honestly.

“Sure,” Bucky drawled, “but all these rich people will think I stole this suit,” and they were grinning at each other again. 

“Seriously,” Steve said, “you look really good. You're gonna make a good impression.”

“Right.” The smile dropped off Bucky's face, and Steve cursed himself. It was a small private benefit, hosted on the rooftop garden, with an auction planned, and the proceeds were to go to various veterans' charities in the New York area. To support this, and at Tony's and more importantly Sam's enthusiastic insistence, Steve had offered up himself — or at least, an evening of his company — for the auction. However, as important as that cause was, the real reason Tony had had the benefit organized was to get Bucky out among people. Specifically, Tony and Pepper's people: wealthy and influential people, who should know Bucky, and like him. For months after the collapse of SHIELD, the government had been too preoccupied cleaning up the immediate threat of Hydra and a severely weakened intelligence infrastructure to worry about where a lone assassin had disappeared to. But now public outcry to find the Winter Soldier was mounting, Bucky's identity was out, a special investigative committee into the Hydra breach had been formed, and Bucky needed friends in high places. So Tony had found some for him, and brought them all together to drink champagne and bid on things, including Steve. Bucky had spent the past two weeks fretting about being among crowds of strangers he'd actually be expected to speak to. 

Bucky shook out his shoulders. “Whatever,” he said, a little bit of the cloud still on him. “I'll just make sure to leave before it starts to rain. Don't wanna ruin the suit.”

“What?” Perplexed, Steve peered out at the beautiful, perfectly clear sky. “It's not going to rain.”

“It will,” Bucky said, then, mysteriously: “I always know.”

“Just like you _knew_ — for _sure_ — that we wouldn't get caught sneaking apples from Mr McGee,” Steve teased.

Steve had expected Bucky to rally his mood and volley back a protest, but he just twisted his mouth. Finally he grumbled, “That was eighty years ago.” 

“He boxed my ears,” Steve said primly. He resettled his jacket one more time, squared his shoulders, and headed to the door. Only when he turned back to switch off the lights, Bucky wasn't behind him. He'd sunk down on the edge of the bed. He was smiling, but his eyes were a little wide.

“Bucky?” 

“You know what,” Bucky said, with forced casualness, “you should go on ahead. I'll catch up. I'm just gonna hang back and fix my hair.” 

This was a common refrain from the days of their youth, when Bucky would refuse to leave their apartment until his hair had been Brylcreemed to perfection. Since his escape from Hydra, though, he never did more with his hair than trim it to keep it at a passably even length. No — Bucky was panicking. Steve hesitated in the doorway. As always, his instinct was to go to him, hold him, offer comfort to him. It was a bad idea. Over the months, Bucky had imparted several definitive lessons about his hatred of coddling. Sometimes he could be subtly soothed into letting his defenses down. Mostly, though, he bristled worse than a porcupine if he suspected someone might notice him feeling vulnerable. 

Still, Steve couldn't resist asking, “Are you sure?”

“Steve, _go away_ ,” Bucky snapped, and Steve flinched before he could suppress it. Bucky took a deep breath. “Sorry. I'm fine,” he said. He pasted on a bright smile. “My hair's an embarrassment. I'll see you up in the garden, okay?”

“Okay,” Steve said. “See you soon.” He closed the door behind him. 

He took a moment to gather himself in front of the elevator. Which had to be what Bucky was doing back in the bedroom — trying to anchor himself to the center of calm he so often slipped from these days. It didn't matter how much he wanted to, that wasn't something Steve could do for him. As terrible as it felt, if Bucky was asking to be alone, the only thing to do was to leave him alone. 

The elevator doors opened the second he pressed the button. Inside, Tony was lounging against the wall, and he tossed a wave at Steve as he came in. “Pepper spotted some grease I missed,” he said, and flicked at a curl of hair damp from a recent scrubbing. “She sent me down in ignominy to scrub behind my ears, like a five year old.”

“At least she didn't do it for you,” Steve said, amused. He'd had that done to him plenty, mostly by his mother, and sometimes, but only upon request, by Bucky. The elevator doors whispered shut behind him. There was no perceptible hitch as the elevator started moving again, but the floor numbers began to tick up: 66, 67, 68.

“Bucky decided to stay back?” Tony asked. His tone was casual — Steve's eyes shot to him anyway. He was still slouched against the wall, nonchalant, like he was still sporting greasemonkey casual rather than a suit worth more than Steve had made throughout the 1930s. It was just Steve being sensitive. Bucky was tender about his privacy and his weird little tics, and that made Steve tender about them too.

“No,” Steve said. “He's—” fixing his hair; it was absurd. “Fixing his hair,” he finished anyway.

Tony huffed out a little laugh and let the lie pass without comment. Steve felt a brief surge of gratitude for him. He really did know when to keep his mouth shut sometimes, despite his own protestations.

Then Tony straightened up off the wall with the air of a man going defiantly before the firing squad, and he intoned: “Sooo...”

Steve's gratitude disappeared. He looked up at the floor numbers. 77... 78... 79. Were they rising more slowly than before?

“ _So_ ,” Tony continued, “here's the thing. I'm gonna lay this out. You know how I said this benefit was gonna be light on the schmoozing?”

“Yes,” Steve said, slowly. “You said it would be exclusive, all people you know, no press, it'll be good for Bucky, and I wouldn't be gladhanding sweaty politicians with bleached teeth.”

“Oh god, I forgot all about your eidetic memory somehow.” Tony squinted up at him as if physically pained.

“Tony.” Steve pinched at the bridge of his nose. “I'm already auctioning an evening off tonight. Bucky agreed to put on a suit for this. You know I'm committed. Is there a sweaty politician I need to gladhand?”

“Sort of,” Tony admitted. At Steve's groan, he said, “He's not sweaty! At least not that I've noticed, not that I've been on the lookout — look, this is a guy you want to schmooze, I promise.” He fumbled at his StarkPhone. “Ugh, Jarvis, stop the elevator.”

Steve crossed his arms as the floor display ground, over several long seconds, from 84 to 85, and there it stalled. He stared down at Tony.

“Do I need to just take a photo with this guy, or what?” he asked.

Tony sighed. “You need to make friends with him as much as possible. Look, I promise, you really want to do this. I have done you a huge favor. Seriously — me, the favor-doer. You should be thanking me.”

Muttering under his breath, Steve grabbed his own phone out of his pocket. Jarvis had pulled up the Wikipedia page on Senator John Carlton, R-PA. His little photo smiled handsomely up from the screen. Steve scrolled right through his life history and skimmed his policies. “Oh good,” he said to Tony. “He campaigned against marriage equality in his state. We'll be best friends. At least tell me he doesn't have any ties to Hydra.”

“He doesn't have any _direct_ ties to Hydra.”

“Oh my god,” Steve exploded.

Tony threw his hands up. “I said there aren't any ties! It looks like some of his policies happened to coincide with Hydra's agenda, and they did... some things... to support him. I've checked his background top to bottom, believe me, and he didn't even know. He probably still doesn't know. It was Jarvis that put it together, it's not even explicitly stated anywhere in the files. So calm down!”

There was a pause, in which Steve could hear the humming of the machinery around them, and Tony's offended breathing.

“Okay. I'm sorry,” Steve said. “Why do I need to make friends with him?”

“You know they've appointed a special investigative committee to look into Hydra,” Tony said. Steve nodded. “I invited him last minute because he was just appointed chair of that committee. This is the guy who'll have a huge say in whether to bring your boy Bucky to court.”

Steve's head snapped up. “Tony, that's—”

“What?” Tony said. “Dishonest? Cheating? Corruption? I know, I know, you're Incorruptible Captain America.” He waved a hand, as if to swat these complaints out of the air. “People are baying for Hydra blood, and Bucky is Hydra's only public face. These politicians will throw him under the bus to satisfy the bloodlust, and they'll never lose a night of sleep as long as their constituents approve. You want him to go to trial? If not, then it can't hurt to have a friendly on the inside. Can it?”

“I'll talk to him,” Steve said. Even that weighed on him, but... it was Bucky. “But I'm not striking a deal, or whatever you're imagining.” He paused. “But I don't understand why you had to ambush me in the elevator to have this conversation.”

Tony started. “What? What do you mean?”

“The door opened as soon as I pressed the button, and I'm supposed to believe you happened to be coming up right at that second? You ambushed me in this elevator,” Steve repeated.

“Oh my _god_ ,” Tony groaned. “Jarvis, fire the engines, get me out of here.”

“Indeed, sir,” Jarvis intoned, and they rose so swiftly Steve's stomach dropped.

The elevator doors opened with a _ding_ , and Steve stepped out past Tony into the soft night air. The party was in full swing on the rooftop garden. White stone pathways wound their way among carefully cultivated flowerbeds brimming with blooms, shrubs, and even tight little clusters of trees. Tonight, glowing paper lanterns swayed in a spiderweb of curving lines above the heads of the partygoers. There was a dais with a microphone where the auction would take place, draped in white cloth. Women in elegant dresses and men in bespoke suits were meandering the paths together, and the light murmur of their conversation floated across the rooftop.  
  
"Don't throw anyone off the roof," Tony advised, slipping away at a trot to where Pepper was holding court among several smiling women who could be anything from heiresses to power brokers. There were audible exclamations of greeting when Tony joined them, then some comment from him, followed by laughter. Steve smiled to himself as he drifted to the edge of the roof, skirting the edge of the party for now. His path took him meandering through the flowers, which smelled wonderful in the balmy night air. A handful of the brightest stars were twinkling in the clear black sky, but it was the city spread out before him that was the true galaxy of light; each building hosted constellations of golden windows.  
  
Steve turned so that his elbows were braced against the railing. He watched the party — he'd have to dive in there eventually, not just because of the schmoozing, but primarily because that was what Bucky had to do tonight, and Steve wouldn't abandon him to face high society alone. And really, it was for a good cause. Sam had had a lot of involvement in organizing this one. There were a handful of caterers scattered throughout the crowd, floating from guest to guest with the flow of the crowd. Steve was tracking one, wondering if it was worth wading over there to grab one of the shrimp puff things from his tray, when he spotted him, standing on the other side of a patch of greenery. Senator John Carlton engaged in conversation with an older man Steve didn't recognize, smiling a straightforward, charismatic smile as he gestured with his glass of champagne. Steve checked the Wikipedia page he still had pulled up on his StarkPhone — yes, that was definitely him. A little far to the other side of middle-aged, but handsome, with a strong cleanshaven jaw, hair still thick and what Steve felt to be unpretentiously styled, and a face so open you'd trust him if he told you to buy ice in winter.  
  
As Steve watched, Carlton glanced up and his eyes arrowed straight to him. It was only the years of controlling himself for the sake of his public persona that allowed Steve to stifle his instinctive wince at being caught staring. Instead he nodded a hello. Carlton met his gaze. He smiled — warm, friendly. He raised his glass, and his look lingered a moment before he turned back to his conversation.  
  
Steve found himself already eying the secluded alcoves against the wall. They were little round crannies isolated from the main garden by trellises that acted like screens, filled with climbing roses. It would be a much nicer time to go in there and listen to the party without having to participate, maybe drag Bucky in there once he'd done his rounds—  
  
You still need to schmooze, he reminded himself sternly. Parties were no time for having fun.

Even from his vantage point, Steve didn't see Bucky slip onto the roof. One moment he was idly observing a group of people in fine dress, and the next he startled as he realized the object of interest they had clustered around was, in fact, a man in a gray suit with an intimately familiar head of shaggy dark hair. Steve started forward on instinct, then stopped. Bucky was talking animatedly, wearing a real smile, and his metal hand was a bright arc in the air, describing something fast and, apparently, funny; as Steve watched, Bucky's audience laughed in delight. Steve found himself standing there, soaking in the pleasure of watching Bucky exercise his charm on a crowd of unsuspecting innocents. They looked thrilled to be in his presence.

Bucky glanced up and caught his eye. He grinned, and shook his head quickly: I'm fine. Hold the rescue. Steve shook himself from his daze and bounded after the waiter with the shrimp puffs. He grabbed a handful and stood chewing them under some lanterns near the dais, shaking hands when someone introduced themselves, but continually his eyes would once again land on Bucky.

A few people detached themselves from the group around Bucky, but more were coming closer, trying to look as though they weren't openly drawn by the metal hand and the man possessing it. They didn't seem afraid of him, just fascinated. Of course they were, Steve told himself. The benefit, it was a pretext as much for them as it was for Steve; the real attraction, for all of them, was Bucky. Tony had passed around word to his most powerful friends that if they wanted a gander at the famed Winter Soldier, resurrected Bucky Barnes, then this was the place to drop a few thousand dollars tonight. Thinking about Bucky being gawked at made him want to go over there and set himself down like a shield in the crowd, but he told himself this was what they were there for. This is what was supposed to happen. The guests were all supposed to go home and say to themselves, “Oh, Bucky Barnes, what a charming young man he turned out to be;” they were supposed to lean their heads together and whisper, “What a tragedy.”

Steve swallowed. A wind was rising that had a brisk edge, and he rubbed his hands together, although he wasn't cold.

“Hello, there,” someone said beside him. Steve turned his head to find Senator Carlton holding out a flute of pale champagne. “Have you tried the champagne? Our friend Tony has excellent taste.”

“I'm sure Tony had nothing to do with selecting the drinks.” Steve accepted the glass with one hand and reached out to shake with the other. “Captain Steve Rogers.”

“Yes, I noticed.” The senator had a winning smile and a vigorous handshake. “Senator John Carlton. It's an honor.”

“Likewise,” Steve said — this script, at least, hadn't changed since the '40s.

“To the veterans of America, then,” the senator said. They clinked glasses. The champagne did taste good, although Natasha had informed Steve once that his palate was past hope, so what did he know?

“Some of your friends are coming to intercept you,” the senator said. When Steve looked around, Sam and Natasha were threading their way through the crowd to him. “It was good to meet you, Captain. I hope we can speak more later.”

“Of course, I'll be here all night,” Steve replied.

The senator moved off, and Steve had time for a few more sips of his actually very pleasing champagne before Sam was in front of him, hands spread to the side as though he were theatrically admiring a work of art. “Check this out,” he said to Nat. “He cleans up nice!”

“He'll do,” she agreed, eyes sparkling.

“It's just a shame you've let military fashion go downhill since my day,” Steve said.

Sam quirked an eyebrow and shrugged.

“This is an amazing crowd, by the way.” Steve gestured to all the millionaires swirling like peacocks through the garden. “You did a great job, Sam.”

Sam looked pleased. “Yeah, we're hoping to bring in beaucoup bucks tonight. It'll help a lot of people. It's thanks to Tony and Pepper for letting us on the roof.”

“Clint offered to let Sam use his roof in Bed-Stuy, but I can't see that going over as well,” Natasha put in.

Steve, who had been on Clint's roof several times, mostly in the wake of some kind of disaster, had to laugh. “That sounds more like my kind of party.”

“Steve Rogers, can't have fun unless someone's punching his face in,” Natasha said grimly, sounding so like Bucky that Steve stared at her, shocked. Then her entire demeanor lightened. “Hey. I hear you're up for grabs at _this_ party. What's more fun than that?”

Steve's face went into his hands, and he groaned. Somewhere behind him, Sam started laughing. “ _Yeees_ ,” he cackled. “Here you are, waiting by the dais. You eager to get auctioned off, man?”

“No,” Steve complained.

Sam and Natasha laughed cruelly.

“Aw, shut up,” Steve sighed. He dropped his hands from his face, then didn't know what to do with them. “I'm happy to do my part, but I don't know what the hell to talk about for a whole evening alone with a stranger.”

“The Great Depression,” Nat suggested at the same time as Sam said, “Your passion, military fashion.”

Steve scowled.

Natasha and Sam exchanged a weighted look. Immediately, Sam said, “Oh no, don't tell him,” then “You're weak, Romanov, weak,” as she turned to Steve with a kind expression.

“Don't worry about it, Steve,” she said. “We helped Bucky arrange it. He's gonna buy you.”

“What?” Steve looked around in confusion. “Bucky doesn't have any money.”

“We know,” Sam said. “It's another Stark operation. Bucky does the bidding, Tony puts up the cash. Then you get your night on the town together.”

“Oh,” Steve said, feeling, pathetically, a little choked up. He regretted harassing Tony in the elevator now, but it wasn't just that — Bucky had shown extraordinary reluctance to leave the Tower since Steve had first hauled him into it, ironically also while suffering his protests. It took immense wheedling just to get him out for a run, or to coffee. It couldn't be good for him to be cooped up, not when he should be reconnecting with the world, but big crowds and open, unfamiliar spaces were an iffy proposition for him, even on a good day. That Bucky might want to actually go on the date he'd be bidding on...

“Thank you,” Steve said, moved.

“What are friends for,” Sam said, and clapped him on the back. “Hey, the auction's gonna start up in a minute. I've gotta mingle. Catch you up later?”

“Yeah, sure,” Steve said, waving him off. Nat leaned in to give him a hug, then took Sam's arm when he offered it to her. Steve popped his last shrimp puff as they disappeared into the crowd.

He had wandered back over the garden paths by the time Tony bounded up on stage a few minutes later. “Hello, ladies, gentlemen, and cyborgs!” he boomed into the mic, to general applause. People began to make their way in from the garden in interested groups; Steve spotted Bucky being dragged along by what looked like a father with a young daughter, who was clinging very excitedly to Bucky's metal hand. He looked more tired around the eyes, but he was still speaking with smiling kindness to the child.

“As you all know,” Tony continued, strolling down the stage like he was at Stark Expo, “we've come together tonight to benefit a very important cause, that of American military veterans — and in fact, several of the more interesting representatives of this population are here with us.” He stopped abruptly, then said, “There you go!” and Steve realized that Bucky's metal hand had come up in a languid, cocky wave. “Proceeds from this auction will go to important services like outreach, community support, of course research and development of advanced prosthetics.” He winked. “And yadda, yadda, yadda, you all read the brochure, let's get this party started!”

Possibly, Steve reflected, they should have left the introduction to Sam.

“Now, my colleague Thor could not ride the lightning over from London tonight,” Tony said, “but he sent over a private donation, direct from Asgard, a very exciting thingamajig!” He held up something that looked like a necklace made of beaten gold. “Is it jewelry? Is it a weapon? Who knows. It's definitely out of this world. Bidding starts at five thousand dollars. Do I hear — okay, I hear five thousand...”

Steve hung back, in the shadow of a rhododendron bush. It was getting a little cold, and the wind was gusting more strongly in from the sea. One of the paper lanterns had gotten tangled up in the rhododendron, and the wind was battering it back and forth, gradually squashing it out of shape further and further. Worried about fire, Steve stood on his toes to reach into the bush and extricate the lantern from the foliage. The paper felt pleasantly rough against his skin, but also fragile, like a bird's egg. When he peered inside the lantern, Steve immediately felt like an idiot. The glass bulb burned with warm orange light, and even flickered in the artificial emulation of candlelight. Of course it wasn't a real candle in there. Even in his day, they probably would have used electricity for something like this. Across the garden, Tony banged his gavel, and the winner cheered. Steve was abruptly aware of himself, staring down into a lantern, at a fake flame, in his replica uniform. With nothing else to do, he put it back into the tree.

“Wow, Stevie.” Bucky was standing in the shadow of the rhododendrons next to him. “Having a rough night?”

“Bucky,” Steve breathed, and pulled him into a hug. Just a hug, nothing more. This was one secret that hadn't made it beyond their circle of friends yet. “I'm getting really bored of flowers.”

Bucky grinned. “I hear you, pal.”

Steve pulled away from the hug to study Bucky surreptitiously. He wasn't frowning, but he already looked exhausted, and his shoulders were hunching slightly. His metal fingers were fretting unconsciously at the cuff of his right sleeve. “Are you—” _okay_ ; he swallowed it back. “Hungry?”

“Naw.” Bucky's mouth quirked up in that crooked smile Steve had loved for the better part of a century. “People keep bringing me those shrimp things, like gifts, you know? Like a cat would, or a kid. Here, I heard you're an assassin who was fed slop through a tube for seventy years, have you tried _shrimp?_ ” He laughed.

“Oh yeah?” What, people forgot they'd grown up in New York? “What do you do?”

“I act really excited, every time.” Bucky grabbed one of the rhododendron's branches and yanked on it. A flurry of flowers fell. One landed on Steve's shoulder, and he grabbed it off. “So I'm stuffed. It's a good thing my metabolism's as crazy as I am.”

“Bucky,” Steve said softly, before he could stop himself. Talking down about himself was something Bucky had admitted his therapist was having him work on, but chastising him about it wouldn't help. He picked at the silken petals of the big pink flower in his hands.

“Hey.” Bucky, Steve saw with surprise, was looking at him with just as much concern as he'd felt studying Bucky. “I saw you with that guy.”

“What guy?”

“The guy—” Bucky gestured at his face, smiled wide and winningly. “I swear I know his name. Dark hair?”

“Senator Carlton,” Steve supplied.

Bucky snapped the fingers of his right hand. “Yes! That's it. My memory's for shit these days. Look, I don't know why he's even here, but you shouldn't talk to him.”

“Okay,” Steve said cautiously, and shredded another petal. Despite having made his objections clear to Tony, now he found himself reluctant to give up. “Why not?”

“He's Hydra,” Bucky said.

“ _What?_ ” Steve yelped. He grabbed Bucky's shoulder and dragged him behind the rhododendron so they were completely out of sight from the crowd at the dais. Dammit! He'd left his shield downstairs. “Fuck! I'm going to kill Tony. Bucky, did you recognize him, or—”

“Steve, Steve! Shut up!” Bucky was snapping his fingers in front of Steve's face now. “Take a breath. He's not _really_ Hydra.”

The paper lanterns were rattling in the wind above them. Steve looked wildly up at them, like they might make this make sense. “What the hell does _not really Hydra_ mean in this context?” Steve hissed.

“It means I did a job for him and he probably didn't know about it,” Bucky said. They'd been squatting under the bush, and now Bucky rose carefully and pulled Steve up with him. He brushed leaves off the shoulders of Steve's uniform. “He might have, I mean, I don't know. They didn't tell me anything. But from what I picked up, he was behind some important legislation that helped destabilize some country, and they wanted him back in office, but he was gonna lose the election. So they had me fix it for him.”

“Fix it,” Steve said warily. He made his face as open and neutral as possible. Everyone had told him that it was important that Bucky feel safe to share whatever horrors from his captivity he wanted to unburden from himself, but at the same time, Steve must not push Bucky to reveal what he wasn't ready to talk about it; Steve had found this to be true, but still had no idea how to straddle this line elegantly on a consistent basis. The neutral face was his fallback. He had a suspicion Bucky thought it was stupid as hell, but at least he knew what Steve was trying for. “How'd you fix it?”

“You don't deploy the Winter Soldier to hack the voting machine,” Bucky said flatly. His metal hand went back to rubbing at his cuff.

Steve was squashing his rhododendron into brown pulp. “Okay,” he said. Neutral.

“No, I'll tell you.” Bucky bit at the inside of his cheeks, giving himself a gaunt, starving look. “He was running against a woman,” he said. He was yanking at the rhododendrons again, not hard, but repetitively, so that the bush was shuddering. “You can't shoot a political candidate without making them into a martyr. So I drowned her seven year old and framed her for it.”

The next moment Bucky was off, leaving the flowers shivering in his wake, to make a quick anxious lap around the bush. By the time he'd circled back Steve had mostly gotten the ground back under him.

“I'm sorry, Buck,” Steve said. “It wasn't your fault.” He said this every time. The pulped flower had fallen from his hands.

“So he's not really Hydra,” Bucky said, as if Steve hadn't spoken. His chest was heaving a little under his fine suit, as though he'd run much farther than around a bush. “I don't think he knew. So he wasn't Hydra like Rumlow was Hydra, or like I was Hydra. But,” he continued, before Steve could protest, “he's sort of Hydra. He's aligned with their interests. When that kid died,” he said, with sharp bitterness, “he probably felt God had dealt him a stroke of luck.”

Steve raised a hand out to Bucky, and Bucky flinched away, tucking his hands up into his armpits. Steve ran his fingers through his own hair instead. “Yeah. That's—” He didn't have the words for that. Sometimes, he found himself savagely wishing he could hunt down every single person who ever worked on the Winter Soldier program, not just for the atrocities they committed, but for forcing Bucky to be their hand in them. But that's one of the things the investigative committee was supposed to help do. “I think I still have to talk to him, though.”

Bucky raised his head, and gazed at Steve through his curtain of hair. “I wish you wouldn't.” He scowled and shook his head irritably when Steve foolishly let his expression grow concerned. “Not for me, forget about me. For you, Steve. I don't want—” He swallowed convulsively. Steve waited him out. “I'm not doing right by you,” he said, finally, “if you feel you have to talk to scum like that.”

The answer Bucky wanted wasn't that Steve would associate with all kinds of scum on his behalf, but it was the only answer that was true. Steve shrugged. “I'll be alright,” he said. “I can always throw him off the roof.”

Bucky laughed in surprise. “Call me over so I can watch.” His gaze softened with open fondness. “Steve,” he said. “You're good all the way through. Don't put that at risk, okay? No matter what.”

“Hey, when have I ever taken the easy road?” Steve said, and Bucky let him draw him close for a secret kiss behind the flowers. Steve stroked down his neck, trying to ease the tightness in his muscles away. Sometimes, after a moment like that, Bucky's mood would plummet and not recover for days. Hopefully this time he could hold on. At least until the end of the benefit.

Bucky pushed him away after just a second. “I've gotta get back to impressing my new fanbase.” He patted his belly. “I'm starving for shrimp.”

He had trotted a few yards away when Steve called out, “Hey, Buck.”

Bucky turned on the spot, walking backwards away from Steve now, eyebrows up.

“Thank you,” Steve called to him. “I mean it. I know this isn't—” _easy_ “ —what you'd like to be doing, so thanks. I think it'll help you out a lot, down the line.” 

“Help me?” Bucky cocked his head. “Buddy, I'm doing this for you.” He tossed off a salute, and was gone.

With Bucky gone, it was like sound rushing back into a vacuum. Consciousness of the auction still happening across the garden came back to Steve, and he stood listening to Tony gleefully referee the battle between two bidders struggling over some kind of treasure. He hoped it wasn't him. Even though his situational awareness never really turned off and hadn't since 1943, Steve was still surprised to register that the temperature had dropped, and the wind had grown crisp as an autumn breeze. He shivered and jammed his hands into his pockets. The leaves were trembling in the wind as he made his way out of the flowerbeds.

When he was at the back of the crowd he clocked Tony spotting him, but Tony made no move to call attention to him, and with a frisson of relief, Steve moved on. Bucky was back among the people, head bent low in conversation with two middle-aged women. He let his eyes linger on him, but he couldn't see Bucky's face to check on him. He just noted the tension in his shoulders and let him be.

Steve spotted the senator after a few minutes. He was alone, sipping at another glass of champagne. Steve moved right up to him.

“Senator,” he greeted.

“Captain Rogers,” Carlton said, pleased.

Although it was Steve who had sought this encounter out, he had to fight back a surge of intense dislike for the man in front of him. Even if he didn't know about what had been done to keep him in power, Steve couldn't help but associate him with Bucky darting around the rhododendrons to burn off the burst of terror.

“Are you enjoying the party?” Carlton asked.

“Yes, sir.” Steve sighed at himself and shifted on the balls of his feet. “My friend Sam Wilson helped organize it. It's an important cause to both of us.”

“That's right.” Carlton took in the dress uniform. “You have a reputation as a man of principle. I consider myself a man of principle as well.”

Steve was about to respond when he spotted Bucky.

The two women had brought Bucky near the alcoves so they could talk away from the auction. Bucky had alarming tightness in his face and the lines of his body, standing stiffly against the wall, but it was nothing the civilians would be able to pick up on. He was listening to their conversation and interjecting every so often with a comment of his own. The talk by the rhododendrons had strained him, but he was holding it together. Steve shoved down the desire to go over. If Bucky could hold it together, so could he.

Steve turned back to his own conversation only to see, with an unpleasant jolt in the pit of stomach, that the senator had followed his line of sight. His gaze was still resting on Bucky.

Moving with the people around him so that it seemed accidental, Steve shifted himself between Carlton and Bucky.

The senator asked, “Do you keep checking on him because he's dangerous?”

It took sincere effort to keep his hands loose at his sides. “He's not dangerous.”

Carlton sipped at his champagne. “His files would indicate otherwise. It's sixty-eight assassinations, isn't that right?”

“If you've seen his files,” Steve said, pitching his voice very low, “then you know what Hydra did to him. They tortured him. They wiped his mind. He hasn't done a single violent thing since escaping from them.”

The actual Winter Soldier files, as complete as the combined efforts of the Avengers could assemble them, had been turned over to the government. The public then received a severely redacted version, which contained just enough salacious material to set the social media networks aflame. Did you read, people whispered to each other, about how they shoved him in a cryo tank after every mission? All the drugs they had him on? How he shot Nicholas Fury through a wall? How they broke every bone in his body? How he torched that school? How his reward for a successful mission was getting to sleep with a blanket — can you imagine that, killing all those people for a blanket?

It was just enough to make Bucky seem more alien than ever before, only now they had a name and a face to put to the monster. Bucky steadfastly refused to talk about it, but Steve hated the fact that any random person could run into Bucky on the street and know some of the horrors that kept him up at night.

“The files will require extensive review,” Carlton said simply, and changed the subject. “I have to ask, have you ever been to Pennsylvania?” So Steve was obligated to respond that he had, but only on his USO tour in '43, and probably things had changed since then.

A quarter of an hour of small talk later, Steve looked around for Bucky again.

Bucky was still with the two women, but he was no longer chatting; instead he was nodding along to their stream of conversation, with a smile that looked like it had been glued to his face. His eyes were tight and his metal fingertips were rubbing at the cuff of his suit jacket, evenly but rapidly, in compulsive little circles.

“Excuse me,” Steve said to Carlton, and then he went wading through the glittering crowd, feeling as large and conspicuous as a whale in a shoal of colorful fish. He didn't want to draw any attention to Bucky, but the chatter from the women died away as he approached, and they fixed welcoming smiles on him. If they were hoping for his company they were doomed to disappointment. He managed to smile at them in return and say: “I need to grab him for a minute, hope that's okay,” and the moment his hand landed on Bucky's elbow Bucky was steering both himself and Steve out of the crowd. They ended up in one of the secluded alcoves, hidden from the rest of the rooftop by a latticework trellis of twining roses, lit inside by a couple dangling paper lanterns. 

Bucky pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. "Fuck," he gritted out.

This meant, Steve thought, that he'd wanted to escape the company but was stressed enough he'd regressed to that place where he didn't feel comfortable expressing any opinion approaching disobedience. As far as Steve was aware, there was nothing Bucky hated more, nothing that made him feel weaker than the reminder that one of the lasting consequences of what Hydra had done to him was the flawless, compulsive obedience they instilled. Even a year later he hadn't fully escaped it. Perhaps he never would. Steve swallowed back the question _are you okay_ yet again. "Do you want to leave?" he asked instead.

Bucky's eyes were on the trellis, like he could see through it and to the party whose laughter and chatter still permeated their quiet little corner. Somewhere, Tony was still auctioneering — _aaand sixteen thousand, to the woman in the fabulous hat._ "I used to be good at this," Bucky said.

He did — Steve had a handsome assortment of memories of Bucky doing things like this. Not high society benefits, where two ragamuffins like them would never have fit in, but Bucky had been able to make everything from family gatherings to dance halls seem easy and fun, in a way that had awed Steve. He had shared his charm and confident grins around, navigated with calm instinct what were to Steve treacherous waters. Steve had felt then that possibly everybody Bucky met fell a little bit in love with him. Certainly any number of strangers let him whisk them away, off to dance or into conversation. Maybe it would seem to an outsider like the Bucky of those distant years was a figure always vanishing into the crowd. That wasn't what stood out in Steve's memory; it was that at the end he always came back, and then they shared hours that were for the two of them alone.

“Yeah. You did.” Steve yearned to touch Bucky's elbow or take his hand, but his shoulders were hunched in a way that meant he was feeling too defensive; he'd take it as solicitous, not comforting. “You also used to be able to run circles around me in the schoolyard. What's up with you lately, Barnes?”

Bucky snorted out a laugh. His shoulders loosened slightly, but there was still so much tension in the the tight lines of his face.

Steve ran his finger over the frayed circle in Bucky's cuff. His metal fingers had worn the fabric down to a rough gray bald spot; perhaps another half an hour's fiddling and he would have rubbed a hole in it. Bucky's mouth was set in a tight line as he watched Steve touching the damage. Under his sleeve, his metal arm whirred as its plates recalibrated.

“I would have thought it'd be your other hand,” Steve said. Bucky cocked his head. “You know — that you'd fidget with.” 

“Why?” Bucky raised his human hand and rippled his fingers, like he'd forgotten about it. “Because it feels more?” 

“Yeah.” Steve rubbed at one of the pins in his jacket in demonstration. The cold ridged metal did feel concrete and grounding under his touch. “It's the texture, isn't it?”

Bucky shrugged. He dropped himself onto the stonework bench, put his elbows on his knees, and sighed into his fingers. His hair swung down as a wild dark fringe to shield the sides of his face, so that for the moment all Steve could see of his face was the tip of his nose poking out from between his hands, and the white shell of his ear unveiled by his falling hair. Steve lowered himself to the bench beside him, feeling inflated beyond his size with an impossible mixture of concern and huge affection. Bucky's back expanded with deep, measured breaths. The black suit jacket tightened and relaxed, catching the golden light from the paper lanterns in shifting patterns. Steve couldn't take his eyes off Bucky, but he kept part of his attention on the trellis, ready to protect Bucky's privacy. But no one came nosing around their slice of solitude. The noise of the party, the footsteps on stone, Tony's stream of commentary, the gossip, the laughter, all of it was a world away — outside this country of their own, in which only existed the scent of roses, and the crisp breeze on Steve's face, and Bucky's deliberate breaths. 

After a while, Steve stroked his fingers through Bucky's hair. It was soft and parted easily, so he did it again, cupping the curve of Bucky's skull, and a third time, slow and tender. Bucky held himself on the edge of tension for a second more. Then he relaxed all at once. His shoulders drooped and he gusted out an enormous sigh even as he picked his head up out of his palms. Except for the white stone platform upon which the bench stood, the ground in the alcove was rich dark loam, strewn with white pebbles. Bucky plucked one of these out of the dirt. He held it up to the light and examined it with so much interest that Steve peered closer too. Just a boring, pale little rock. It looked unassuming and dull pinched in between his thick, glittering metal fingers. 

“When I was with Hydra,” Bucky said, sounding calm and contemplative, “there would be times when I'd be lying on a rooftop for hours, even days sometimes, waiting for the perfect shot. I'd be focused, but... bored, and I guess... stressed.” He took a breath. Steve was never sure whether his difficulty was categorizing the emotions he'd experienced as the Winter Soldier, or admitting that he'd had them. “Because _I_ had to be perfect. So I'd grab one of the pieces of gravel and just squeeze it, like this.” He held up his metal hand with its little prize. “Then I'd pop it.” With a crunching noise, the pebble was reduced to gritty white powder. It sifted down from Bucky's hand like sand in an hourglass. “It couldn't be my other hand. If they looked they might see the marks. And it's quiet, don't you think? Not much louder than me shifting around on a roof. Had to be — I wasn't supposed to be distracted. I didn't want my handlers to hear me. Even when I was alone, I worried they would hear me.” He was quiet for a moment; Steve could hear the wind rustling the flowers. Then Bucky tapped the damaged area of his custom suit. “Muscle memory sticks around, right? Now I just have more expensive things to destroy.”

Steve didn't know what to say.  _You don't destroy_ _things_ and  _they don't have you_ _anymore_ ; these useless platitudes clogged his throat. For a wavering moment, the Bucky of the present on the garden bench was sublimated under a superimposed image from years long gone, a younger man hunched in a similar manner over his book, sitting crosslegged on Steve's bed. Steve remembered glancing up from his sketch of something unimportant at the same time as Bucky looked up, and their eyes met, and they leaned across the bed toward each other. When they kissed, their bodies formed an arch over the bedspread, like the ceiling of a cathedral. Then they went back to what they'd been doing. There had been so many moments like that. They'd carved out a private slice of the cosmos in that apartment. It seemed incredible that they hadn't known it then, what a blessing it was that the world didn't care at all about a couple of Brooklyn boys. 

Looking at Bucky now, who was rubbing at the dust on his hand with a strange wistful expression, Steve was swept up in the overpowering urge to simply grab him and spirit him away — steal him out from every single watchful eye that had him pinned, take him to some island or lonely moor, away from every benefit press junket and pack of lawyers and investigative committee, where maybe in solitude there would be simplicity. But of course it could not be. 

Bucky stood up. “I'm done with this circus,” he announced. “I'm gonna go to bed. Steve?” 

Steve stood up too, brushing dust off the seat of his pants. “Yeah, that's a good idea,” he said. “I'll be down soon.” 

“Alright,” Bucky said, and they kissed, sweetly, in the quiet behind the rose trellis. Then Bucky winked, and disappeared into the garden. By the time Steve made his way out of the alcove, he was gone. 

Outside the shelter, the wind had gone from crisp to cutting, and many women were shivering in their sleeveless dresses. Dark clouds were scudding over the sky, blotting out the scattered stars. Steve caught a fresh, clean smell in the air, like maybe it really would rain. He snagged a glass of champagne from a passing caterer; it felt warm and lively going down. Up on the dais, Tony bellowed, “ _Sold!_ To the man with the handlebar mustache and the discretion not to snitch on his eleven-year-old nephew when he finds him stealing his Playboys.” Rippling laughter, and a shout of disapproval. “C'mon, I'm kidding, Uncle Freddie—”

“Captain Rogers,” said a voice at his shoulder.

Steve turned and lowered the glass from his lips. “Senator.” 

Senator Carlton smiled his honest smile. 

Behind him now, Tony shouted to his audience, “Alright, folks, this is the last of the lot, and some would say the prize, a genuine antique—” there was more laughter and an excited murmur; Steve winced. He realized, belatedly, that Bucky was gone. In the stress, he must have forgotten that he'd planned to bid. “—An all-expenses-paid, all-night-long, but very chaste and respectful, evening for two with one of our veterans desperately in need of benefit, a living legend, the one and only Steve Rogers, Captain America!” 

At the enthusiastic cheering, Steve chugged his champagne. 

“Captain,” Carlton joked, “sounds like you're for sale.” 

“It's for a good cause,” Steve said. The wind flared, and he shivered against his will. 

“For this unique opportunity the bidding will start at ten thousand dollars, increases at five thousand,” Tony announced. “Do I hear ten thousand? Wow — okay. Ten thousand! I hear fifteen thousand! I hear — Uncle Freddie, no. I hear twenty thousand!” 

Senator Carlton tucked his hands into his pockets. His cheeks were pinked with cold, but he regarded Steve mildly. “I saw Sergeant Barnes leave early,” he remarked. “I trust he's well.” 

Steve prickled. His grip tightened on the fragile stem of his champagne flute. “He's fine,” he said shortly. 

Carlton dipped his head in apology. “No offense meant, Captain,” he said. “Of course it's understandable if he has difficulties. As you know, I've seen the files.” 

If any stranger had dared to assume things about Bucky's mental health, Steve would have rounded on them at once. As it was, he told himself  _chair of the investigative committee_ , and strangled his instinct down, and was left with nothing at all to say. He stared at Carlton. His throat felt dry. 

“Let's take a walk in the garden,” Carlton suggested. He gripped Steve's elbow in a manner too presumptive to be professional, and they strolled together between heavy rows of hyacinth. Earlier in the evening sweet floral perfume had drifted about the pathways, but the rising cold had killed the scent. The sound of Tony calling figures was still audible, but nevertheless Steve felt as though he were alone in the garden with a snake. 

“Did you know,” Carlton asked, “that certain Buddhist monks in ancient Japan voluntarily starved themselves to death?”

Steve frowned. This wasn't what he'd been expecting. “No,” he said finally. “I don't know a lot about Buddhism.”

“Oh, I'm no scholar myself,” Carleton said. “This, however, is an interesting topic.”

They rounded a bend in the path and found themselves in a high thicket of flowering trees. Outside the little copse the city of New York would still be glittering from skyline to skyline, bright and alive throughout the night, but it was hidden here by the interwoven branches, lit only by a group of paper lanterns. 

“The practice is banned now, but it historically, it wasn't thought of as suicide,” Carlton continued. “In fact, it used to be considered an honorable way to achieve a higher enlightenment. A way very rarely taken, however. Only a small number of these bodies have been found.”

“No wonder,” Steve said. He fiddled with the pin he'd touched earlier, with Bucky. 

“That's right,” Carleton agreed. “It's remarkable. The world is full of suffering that people will kill each other to avoid. That's my understanding of suffering — that the average individual will do anything to get out from under it. Then you have this method of enlightenment. Starving yourself to death when food's right there! So many people would have tried it and failed. How many broke before the end? Can you imagine, Captain — the willpower it would have take to self-inflict an austerity so severe it would result in your death? It must have been the rare man who could see it through. A true believer.” 

Steve tap, tap, tapped his pin. “I guess so.” 

“It's fascinating,” Carlton said, “what some people will see done to themselves in the name of a cause.”

The penny dropped. Steve lowered his hand from his pin, to his side, where it curled, almost outside his conscious awareness, into a fist. He was so angry he felt lightheaded and hot. The noise of the crowd faded away to almost nothing, so that Steve was focused wholly on the man before him, as he would be on a battlefield opponent. “Bucky isn't a true believer,” he said. “He didn't volunteer for anything they did to him.” 

“The files aren't conclusive,” Carlton said. He sounded as mild as if they were discussing the weather. “Hydra believed their tactics and procedures were what was needed to shape a perfect supersoldier out of raw clay. They succeeded; they were right. If Sergeant Barnes joined them independently at any point during the war, he could have chosen to undergo the Winter Soldier program of his own free will, for the betterment of his abilities and his cause.” 

“That's ludicrous,” Steve stated, barely keeping his voice from trembling with fury. “It's a lie.” 

“You yourself went through a risky and painful medical experiment following the exact same logic,” Carlton pointed out. 

“I didn't do it for _Hydra_ ,” Steve spat. 

“And you never killed dozens of innocents for Hydra, which Sergeant Barnes provably has.” 

Steve opened his mouth to say — what, exactly, he didn't know — probably something Bucky would have called damn foolishness; but Carlton raised a hand. “Captain Rogers, it's alright, I believe he's as innocent as you are,” he said. “But this is the kind of argument that will get passed around the investigative committee.”

“Oh,” Steve said. He tried to calm himself down without looking obvious about it, dragging his nails over the palm of his hands. He was an idiot, and Carlton was a bastard who knew exactly what he was doing. The kind of bastard who'd play games with Steve about Bucky. With the rage leaking out of his head, Steve could hear the auction going again, muffled by the trees; Tony was exclaiming, “Fifty thousand, do I hear fifty-five thousand, really? Come on, this is Captain America, you're not gonna drop fifty-five grand on him? Do you think he's a cheap date? After all he's done for this country — there we go, that's right, do I hear sixty thousand?” It was absurd, it was absurd, and he couldn't banish the hot core of anger in his belly, and he couldn't unclench his fists. 

He took a deep breath. “Alright, Senator,” he said. “You know he's innocent, so I don't understand the problem.”

Carlton shrugged, looking, for all the world, genuinely regretful. “The problem is the dozens of high-profile assassinations.” He smoothed down the front of his suit jacket. “Or the devastation in D.C. Or the fact that the only other famous member of Hydra is six feet underground. Take your pick.” 

“You can't blame him because people are looking for an easy scapegoat,” Steve said, deliberately calm. 

“A scapegoat is exactly what people are looking for,” Carlton countered. “The Hydra problem is sprawling and complex. We will dig it up by the roots, but in the meantime, the American people want to see a hanging so they can sleep more easily at night. We are public servants, Captain; we serve the people.”

Tony said something that Steve couldn't hear through the buzzing in his ears. The laughter and raucous cheering sounded, filtered through the trees, like they were coming from underwater. 

“For myself, I'm a man of principle,” Carlton said. “But I'm only _one_ man, and I can't promise the same for my colleagues on the investigative committee. The truth is that people want payment for blood, and Sergeant Barnes has blood on his hands. His consent in how it got there is a matter of nuance.”

“Then it's your responsibility,” Steve said, low, “to make the nuances the priority.” 

Carlton smiled. “This is a difficult job,” he said. “I never ran for office out of personal interest. I'm sure you can understand, given your own circumstances. It always has been, and remains, my conviction that it's my responsibility to represent my constituents first and foremost. Anything that would threaten my ability to do that would run contrary to their interests. I have an election coming up, and the preliminary polling is already tight. I can't imagine the reaction if I chose not to prosecute a war criminal in so much public disfavor. As much as I'd like to help Sergeant Barnes, my first duty is to my constituents.” 

Then he looked Steve directly in the eye.

“However, if I could count on Captain America's public backing, and appearances on my campaign trail, many of those concerns would disappear.” 

Steve's breath caught.

“I would be able,” the senator said, “to press the nuances from firmer ground.” 

Everything in Steve screamed no. Throw the snake back in the grass. But there was Bucky, sleeping downstairs. He'd probably wake up later tonight in the throes of a nightmare, as often happened after a stressful day. 

He swallowed. 

“Senator Carlton,” Steve said, “I'll be in touch.” 

“I look forward to it.” Carlton offered up a handshake. His palms were dry to the touch, and smooth. Steve grabbed his hand back quickly. “No worries, Captain, we'll have plenty of time to become friends after the investigation has concluded.”

“Yeah,” Steve managed, and fled from the grove just as Tony banged down his gavel and shouted “ _Sold!_ ” Someone in the crowd before the dais cheered, and there were a few other theatrical groans. Steve stared out over the party. Outside the trees it was freezing. The wind was whipping womens' dresses around their legs, and it seemed everyone had huddled inward for warmth, like penguins gathering together against the storm. Lanterns danced wildly on their strings. 

On the dais, Tony spotted him. “Steve!” he called. “Finally, the man of the hour—”

Thunder cracked, and the heavens opened. 

Bucky had been right, Steve thought, only this was no light drizzle. It was like the sky had torn apart and dumped its water all at once. Within a moment, his uniform was soaked through to the skin. Guests screamed in surprise, high notes to another rolling boom of thunder, and the party scattered at once as everyone broke for the doors. Steve jammed his hands into his sodden pockets and took his time ambling through the garden. All the flowers were bowing under the onslaught, cringing in the wind. 

He would need to talk to Bucky. Bucky had a say too; Steve was very careful about giving him his say nowadays. Except he already knew what Bucky's response would be. He wouldn't think he was worth it. He never did. He had all kinds of stupid opinions about Steve always doing the right thing, most of which Steve actually shared, except when it came to Bucky, and whether he himself was the right thing. 

Rain blew into Steve's face. Natasha dashed in front of him, looking just a little bit pleased, and Sam followed after her, complaining, with a huge grin on his face. At the doors they turned and beckoned Steve inside, but he was walking slowly along the circuitous white stone path. In the gloom and the wet, it shone gray. He passed by the alcoves, with their delicate roses battered against the trellises. By the time he got to the doors, Sam and Nat were gone. 

Steve pressed the button for the private elevator that went to the residential floors. They slid open, and he went inside on autopilot, thinking about Carlton's remark, that they'd have plenty of time to become friends after the investigation. Of course it would be after the investigation. He wouldn't want it to look like a preexisting association with Captain America had biased the results. Just before the doors closed, a wet hand jammed itself between them. 

“I said _hold the elevator, Jarvis_ ,” Tony complained, shoving his way inside. 

“I'm sorry, sir,” Jarvis said, conciliatory. “My external surveillance systems are compromised by the storm.” 

“No kidding. This is the kind of storm where God rings up and orders you to fetch two of every animal.”

The doors closed and they dropped fast. Steve's stomach lurched. Tony was sopping wet but cheerful; he stripped off his jacket and wrung it out into the growing puddle on the floor, to which Steve was also contributing. “Total success,” he said. “I had a great time. Did you hear how much you went for? Christ. It was like they thought Picasso painted you. You're the highest class of prostitute, Cap. I don't think even I'd be able to afford weekly dates with you—”

“Who was it?” Steve interrupted.

“What?” Tony blinked at him. 

“Who bought my lot?”

“Aw, and ruin the surprise?” Tony laughed. “Not into a blind date? Oh, speaking of, how'd your schmoozing with the senator go?”

Steve felt his face pulling into a scowl. “Just tell me who bought the lot,” he demanded. 

The elevator slowed and the doors opened. “Captain America's floor,” Jarvis announced. 

Tony had been giving him a considering look, but he shook his head and bodily shoved Steve into his apartment. “Go dry off,” he said. “Get some sleep. You look like someone just tried to drown you. Take a warm bath — Captain's orders!”

He was still chuckling to himself when the doors closed. Steve frowned down at his uniform dripping onto the hardwood floor. The apartment was huge and dark, but Bucky had left the hallway light on for him. 

Steve dropped his uniform on the bathroom floor. He left it soaking where it lay, medals and all. 

He showered and changed into his pajamas, then slipped into bed beside Bucky. He was still sleeping peacefully, curled into himself with his face toward Steve. Steve lay his head down so their faces were close, and spent a while just looking at him. His hair fanned out across the pillow, black against the white fabric. A few locks had draped themselves across his face, and as his breath went steadily in and out, it blew against them as well, so that they stirred against his skin and Steve could watch the rhythm of his breathing. Sometimes it still took his own breath away just to casually turn his head and see Bucky. It was a miracle to have him here, after death, after Hydra. It was a miracle. 

The rain drummed against the window behind the bed. The inundation was so heavy the rain didn't so much form trickling rivulets on the glass as a pouring sheet of water. Steve's thoughts drifted to the Valkyrie, and that moment of impact with the icy sea, before he lost consciousness, when his awareness was consumed with shocking cold. It hadn't been like that later, on the helicarrier. He hadn't been thinking of the water at all. 

No, on the helicarrier everything had been different. He remembered that feeling of pure intent so clearly that when he called it to mind he could still feel it buoying up his chest. It had been a terrible moment in Steve's life — there was the active threat of Hydra, his world was crumbling around him, he was still reeling from what had happened to Bucky, and Bucky, worst of all, had still been in their power, and Steve was carrying himself on faith alone that he'd be able to get through to him somehow. Yes — it had been crushing. But he had felt such purity of conviction. Everything he needed to do had aligned into one right path. On the helicarrier, the choice had been clear: to survive having saved Bucky, or to die without him. 

Afterward, Steve had been stupid enough to think he had saved him, and that it was as simple as that.

Bucky shifted against the sheets, and his eyelids fluttered. He blinked once, twice. He opened his eyes and stared at Steve. In the watery gray dimness, his gaze was dark and unknowable. Steve brushed the loose tendrils of hair out of his face, then stroked his fingertips down Bucky's cheek.

“Hi,” he whispered.

“Hi,” Bucky echoed.

They looked at each other in the dark. Steve leaned forward. He pressed dry kisses to Bucky's forehead, cheekbones, lips. When he pulled away Bucky still had him fixed with that fathomless stare.

“I'd do anything for you,” Steve said. “You know that, right? To protect you. Anything.”

“I know,” Bucky sighed. He reached across to tangle his cool metal fingers with Steve's. “You've proven that, pal, don't worry. But—”

He fell silent. Tucked his face into the pillow.

“But?” Steve pressed.

“Sometimes I wish you wouldn't,” he muttered. “You were meant for a lot more than this, Steve. Still are. Some things aren't worth it, you get it?”

“Yeah.” Steve tightened his fingers on Bucky's. “And some things are.”

Bucky turned his face further into the fabric, so that he was entirely obscured by the fall of his hair. He stayed there for so long Steve wondered if he'd fallen asleep like that. Then he rolled all at once, fluidly, like a cat, to face Steve again. “That's the problem,” he said seriously. “Because I'd do anything for  _you_ , Rogers. And I know you, down to the bones. So I know that Steve Rogers isn't the fellow who does anything; he always draws the line exactly where it should be.” He brought their intertwined hands up to his face, kissed Steve's knuckles. “So far we've been lucky. But someday I'm going to be on the other side of that line. And I can't let you stop being who you are — not for me.”

“I'd stop being who I am the moment I left you behind,” Steve said. “I'm never going to leave you behind.”

Bucky bit his lip and looked away. He twisted his neck to look out the window, at the storm that drowned the city. “We're not gonna fix this tonight. I'm gonna go back to sleep.” He still wasn't looking at Steve as he muttered, “Wake me up if I have a nightmare?”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Always.”

Bucky pulled their hands to his chest, and Steve pressed close, his face against Bucky's shoulder, feeding each other warmth through the thin cotton of their pajamas. After a while Bucky's breath slowed, and his body relaxed into an uneventful sleep; but Steve stayed awake, feeling the solidity of Bucky's body against his, looking out at the rain that blurred the city lights into distant golden smears, watching over Bucky, as he'd sworn he would.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I cry about Bucky Barnes on a daily basis over on [tumblr](http://ibroketuesday.tumblr.com/).


End file.
